All the latest updates, patches, and other relevant things are first put into Fedora, then getting feedback from the community it is merged into the stable RHEL release. This is called downstream release, which actually uses the previous version’s code to create a similar project but with more enhancement and stability.Īnd for Fedora Linux, Fedora is the upstream or development branch of RHEL. This means that after a stable RHEL was released, using that code and removing RedHat’s proprietary branding, a new CentOS was released. Previously, CentOS was a rebuild of RHEL’s stable version. Now let’s understand what is an upstream and downstream. Red Hat has two main community projects on Linux distribution: Fedora and CentOS. On December 8, 2020, CentOS and RedHat announced the end-of-life (EOL) for CentOS Linux, and they also told others to shift focus to the CentOS Stream project.Īfter the release of CentOS 8, CentOS and Red Hat said that CentOS 8 would be supported through 2029.īut from the recent announcement, we know that CentOS Linux 7, which is a downstream of RHEL 7, will continue support, and its lifecycle will end in June 2024, just like RHEL 7.īut CentOS Linux 8 updates and support have continued until December 31, 2021, and there will be no CentOS Linux 9. In September 2019, RedHat announced CentOS Stream, an upstream development platform designed for CentOS. Red Hat acquired CentOS in 2014 and let them work freely and release stable versions based on the release of RHEL. As CentOS doesn’t cost any money for support and subscription but provides almost the same features as RHEL, it is immensely popular among developers and companies.

It is open-source and uses Red Hat’s source code to create a final product very similar to RHEL. It is a community-driven project that is mainly a rebuild of RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL).

CentOS, short for Community Enterprise Linux Operating System, was founded in 2004.

Centos 8